Approve Line-item Veto To Cut Pork

One of the greatest gifts the Democratic Congress can give the next president, also a Democrat, is a line-item veto that requires a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate to override.

During the campaign, President-elect Bill Clinton said he wanted line-item veto authority and he should push the Congress to give him precisely that.

The authority makes sense at any time, but especially now, with the national debt at $4 trillion and growing at a billion dollars a day. It will take a lot more than a line-item veto to restore economic sanity to the country, but at least it will give the president the authority to cut out the most outrageous pork in the bloated federal budget.

Unfortunately, powerful Democrats are gagging at the thought of giving the nation`s chief executive the same type of veto power now enjoyed by the governors of 43 states, including Florida. The best House Speaker Tom Foley is willing to do is give the president ``enhanced recission authority.`` This would allow the president to make selective budget cuts, but the Congress could restore the cuts with a simple majority vote.

Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, is opposed to just about anything that would give the president more clout in challenging congressional spending. It`s easy to see why. Byrd, more than any other senator, has shamelessly used his power to win pork-barrel projects for his constituents. In fact, the oinks from West Virginia can be heard all the way to the California coast.

This year, voters sent the clear message that they want changes in the way government works. They want the deficit addressed regardless of the parochial interests of the Foleys and the Byrds of the United States Congress.

President-elect Clinton should remind congressional leaders of this and insist that they join him in an all-out assault on the nation`s economic woes, caused in large part by the deficit.

The recission authority recommended by Foley is a step in the right direction, but the president will need more than that to keep the hogs away from the public trough.

Time is running out for the nation to face up to the budget deficit. Congress should either send a constitutional amendment to the states that provides for a line-item veto with a two-thirds override, or enact an effective line-item veto through legislation.